Bay Bridge was exempted from rules limiting large ships from sailing in fog

After the cargo ship Cosco Busan sailed through heavy fog and hit a tower of the Bay Bridge five years ago, spilling 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel, the Coast Guard and shipping officials wrote new rules to limit large ships from sailing in risky areas of San Francisco Bay when visibility is less than a half mile.

But they left out one key risk: the Bay Bridge itself.

On Tuesday, those rules came under scrutiny as questions swirled around whether the pilot of the Overseas Reymar, a 752-foot-long oil tanker that collided with a Bay Bridge tower a day before, had sailed in fog that was too dense, potentially putting the ship, the bridge and the bay at risk.